Hillsborough NJ local Chris F. and his buddy Vasili fished Round Valley Reservoir the morning of Friday August 1st, 2010 and caught something they never thought to catch – a 50 inch long American Eel.  Their eel easily beats the current NJ state record American Eel from 2005.  That eel weighed 6 pound, 13 ounces, measured 41 and 3/4 inches and also was caught in Round Valley Reservoir.

How much did their eel weigh?  No one knows… the fish was never weighed and Vasili’ took it home, cleaned it and ate it!  “I can tell you that the eel was scary looking as hell when it came up in the dark, that it was about as thick around as my bicep, and that it had 4-5 partially digested sunfish and bass in its belly”, said Chris’s buddy.

The two were fishing near the shore on the western side of the North Tower.

We were in about 15 feet of water fishing live shiners.  When the eel hit, the the rod went crazy and had a  big bend in it. We knew it was something big but didn’t know what. It wasn’t fighting like any fish we’d ever caught. Plus it was about 9 o’clock at night, getting dark so we couldn’t see too good.

When asked if they thought about weighing the eel or asking around before eating it.

Neither one of us had ever caught an eel before. We had heard they were in here and that they were big, so we didn’t really think this was some kind of record.  It was only days later when when we showed this picture around and told a friend and they were like, “dude you guys blew it, that’s a state record fish”.  Whatever, we had a great time and that’s all that matters.

Indeed. Congrats to Chris and Vasili!

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